Astronaut

Sending the unlikeliest of people into space–from Jason Voorhees to Homer Simpson–has always been a crowd-pleasing move. So it should come as no surprise that Shelagh McLeod finds the same results in her feature directorial debut Astronaut, which sends seventy-one year old Richard Dreyfuss into the heavens, in perhaps the Oscar winner’s best performance in years.

Based on an autobiography of the same name, Mark Craig’s The Last Man on the Moon documents the experiences and recollections of retired US naval pilot and NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan who, in addition to a couple of other trips to space, was commander of the 1972 Apollo 17 lunar landing. As the last one of his mission to re-enter the vessel, Cernan remains – to this day – the last human being to have set foot…